Even the fiercest
Man can be tamed by the touch
Of his beloved
Callum looked so smug, I knew at once he had not wasted his day.
“Did you enjoy your shopping with Chiyô?” he asked innocently.
“I did. And what about you? What have you been up to?” I demanded. “Where have you been until this hour? And how do you come to smell of whisky, here in Edo?” I sniffed suspiciously. “Cheap whisky, at that.”
He threw his arms up in mock anger and caught me around the waist before I could get away.
“Sit quietly, woman, and I will tell you all I know.”
“Yes, master,” I muttered subserviently, my head dipped in mock fear.
Callum grinned widely. “That’s better. I think I could get used to a nice little wife who does as she’s told.”
I smiled and then pulled his nose, hard enough to hurt. Callum gave my cheek a mock slap and then his face became serious.
“I visited the ryokan our innkeeper directed me to. It’s just inside the Floating World, and as he said, it’s very popular with gaijin. In fact, the proprietor is obviously doing so well out of us stupid foreigners that hardly any Japanese go there now. I wasn’t hopeful of finding any information, but I was very lucky indeed. I went in and ordered a drink and I was astonished when I was given a large shot of scotch instead of sake. I was coughing after my first sip when a chap came up and spoke to the innkeeper in fluent Japanese. It was a good job my eyes were still streaming or I would have given away that I understood him.
“‘Not that rubbish, Goro,’ he said. ‘I think this gentleman is used to something better. The good stuff, if you please.’ I wiped my eyes to give myself a moment to think, and by the time I had put my handkerchief away, the stranger was pushing a much smaller glass toward me. ‘Judging by your accent, I would guess you’re Scottish, sir,’ he said. ‘Now this certainly is not going to be up to your usual standards, but at least it won’t result in you waking up in a back alley in the Floating World wondering where you spent the night and your money.”
“‘Thank you.’ I sipped cautiously. He was right. It wasn’t the best whisky I had ever tasted, but it was far better than my first glass. ‘Your good health.’
“‘And yours,’ he replied. We drank in silence for a moment or two.
“‘I think you must be the gaijin who has caused much gossip by bringing a courtesan from Kagoshima who is said to be so radiantly beautiful she outshines even the lovely Edo ladies,’ my new friend said conversationally. I stared at him in amazement.
“‘And how did you know that?’
“‘Not a lot happens in Edo that I don’t find out about.’ He smiled and gave me his card. It was written in Japanese and I was about to give it back with barely more than a glance, protesting it meant nothing to me, when he gestured to me to turn it over. His name and business were written on the back in English. ‘Christian Mountjoy. Negotiant.’
“‘Negotiant? You’re some sort of wine merchant?’ I said in surprise. He shook his head, smiling.
“‘Not at all. I’m afraid my business doesn’t translate from the Japanese very well. I buy. I sell. Anything and everything that I can make a profit from. Porcelain, jade, silk. Opium.’ He must have seen my frown when he said opium. He shrugged. ‘You don’t approve? If I didn’t supply it to the gentlemen of London town, somebody else most certainly would.’
“‘It’s not up to me to approve or not. But I have traveled a good deal in China and I’ve seen the damage opium can do.’ I realized how stuffy I sounded and managed a smile to soften my words. ‘I didn’t realize it was popular as far away as London.’
“‘It most certainly is. Especially amongst that class of gentleman who has much money and no idea how to spend it.’ He clapped his hand to his mouth in obvious amusement. ‘I do hope I haven’t offended you, sir? That you do not yourself belong to the class of rich idiot who—or at least I sincerely hope—will one day make me rich myself?’
“His eyes were gleaming and I had to laugh. He was the sort of instantly likable chap that isn’t met with often. Already I felt as though I had known him for years.
“‘I may be well off, but I hope I’m not an idiot.’ I held out my hand and he took it in a warm, firm handshake. ‘Callum Niaish. Delighted to meet you, Mr. Mountjoy.’
“‘Christian, please. Or if you prefer, just Mountjoy. Nobody calls me Mr. Mountjoy unless I’m about to do business with them. And I doubt, somehow, that I have anything that would be of interest to you.’”
“That’s all very well,” I interrupted. “I’m sure this man’s very agreeable, but did he know anything about Kazhua?”
“Turned out, he did,” Callum said smugly. “He’s been here a couple of years and he says he loves the Floating World. He claims to have visited every tea house and brothel in the place. I said I was looking forward to visiting a few myself and asked if he had any recommendations.”
“Callum!” I said indignantly. “If you’re supposed to have the most beautiful woman in Edo with you what do you want with a brothel?”
“That’s what Mountjoy said.” Callum grinned widely. “I muttered something about looking for something a bit different and he nodded, as if he understood perfectly.
“‘It’s a great pity you didn’t get here last year,’ he said. ‘If you have a fancy for something different, you need to visit a very special tea house. It’s called the Hidden House, and it’s the most exclusive place in the Floating World. Mind you, you’ve missed the greatest gem of them all. Not that either you or I would have been allowed anywhere near her and lived to tell the tale, but if any woman was worth dying for, it was her. But I can still show you a few ladies who will make your eyes pop, and no mistake.’”
Callum paused, smiling at me. I put my hands on his shoulders and shook him so hard that when we went to the bathhouse later, I found I had bruised his skin.
“Kazhua? Was he talking about my Kazhua?”
“I believe so.” Callum was suddenly very serious. “He called her Midori No Me and said she was the mistress of the greatest yakuza in Edo. A man called Akira. Mountjoy told me he’s so ruthless everybody is terrified of him. Except Midori No Me. He wanted to marry her, but she refused him in favor of her lover, an actor in the kabuki.”
“That was Danjuro,” I interrupted. “Chiyô said it had been thought that Akira had murdered him, and then burned the kabuki to cover up his crime. And that he murdered Midori No Me as well out of jealousy that she preferred Danjuro to him. But she says the gossip is now that all that was nonsense, and that both Danjuro and Kazhua—I mean Midori No Me—escaped together and fled from Edo safely.”
“That’s what Mountjoy said. In fact, he believes the gossip about them both being dead was started by Akira himself to save face. He couldn’t stand the whole of Edo knowing that his woman had run away with his rival. Mountjoy’s sure they’re both alive, and I believe him. He says he knows Akira quite well. I suppose it’s only natural, as their business interests must overlap in a few areas. He said that Akira used to talk about her constantly, until both she and Danjuro disappeared; he hasn’t mentioned her since. I believe him. I think he knows what he’s talking about.”
There it was again, you see. Fate. Callum had met this man by accident. Against all the odds, a gaijin who knew Akira well. Oh, but everything was fitting together just as it should! A sudden thought subdued my pleasure.
“So they’re no longer here in Edo. In that case, how are we ever going to track Kazhua down if someone like Akira can’t find her?”
I stared at Callum, torn between delight that Kazhua was still alive and despair that she had slipped away from me.
“Because it’s Akira she’s hiding from, not us. Don’t forget, I’m just an innocent gaijin. I can bumble about and play the stupid foreign idiot who’s interested in all the gossip. I can ask questions that nobody who knows Akira would dare to ask. That’s how I got Mountjoy talking. He obviously found my total ignorance about how the Floating World works deeply amusing.” Callum paused and I sensed he was delicately probing for the right words. “Tara, I did find out one thing from Mountjoy that you need to know about.”
Callum was staring at me intently, and I found I was becoming nervous.
“What?” I demanded. “It doesn’t sound as if it’s good news, but tell me anyway.”
“You left Kazhua in the Hidden House, didn’t you? And Big promised to care for her for you. That’s right, isn’t it?”
“Yes. You know it is,” I said impatiently. “I’ve told you all about it. And Big must have kept his promise if she was trained to be a geisha.”
“That’s only half of it, my love,” Callum said flatly. “Kazhua did become a geisha. But not in the Green Tea House. She was raised in the Hidden House. She was a maiko there. Had her mizuage there and worked there as a geisha entertaining the men who had a taste for something a little different in a woman. She stayed there until Akira took her away as his concubine. When Mountjoy said I had missed the greatest gem of them all, he meant out of the geisha in the Hidden House. And he was talking about Kazhua. It couldn’t have been anybody else.”
For a merciful moment, my mind was filled with sweet images of my own dear friends from the Hidden House. Beautiful women, with souls as pure as sparkling water. Then memories crowded in of Simon rescuing me from the advances of some of the geishas’ clients. Men who had come to the Hidden House to be entertained by the bodies of the flawed gems who lived there rather than to listen to them dance or sing. Men exactly like all of the other men my dear friends were obliged to take into their bodies every day of their lives.
Callum had his hands tightly on my shoulders. His voice, near as he was to me, seemed to be coming from far away.
“Tara. Are you all right? You’re rigid.”
I turned my head to stare at him. It took a great effort. I felt as if my body had been turned to wood.
“Big promised me that he would look after my baby.” Callum flinched back from the sound of my voice. “I hope he is still here in the Floating World. If he is, I am going to kill him for what he did to my lovely Kazhua.”
“Tara. No.” Callum shook me slightly, and I felt as if a spell had been lifted from me. I sighed deeply and my taut muscles slumped.
“I will kill him,” I repeated. “If he doesn’t remember me, before he dies I will tell him who I am so that he understands why he deserves death. Do you have any idea what the Hidden House is, Callum?”
“I know what you told me about it. And Mountjoy said it’s more or less a very high-class brothel. Very exclusive, a place only the richest men can afford. He said the geisha were incredibly beautiful, and very talented, but that they were all a bit different from normal women. He said that if I really wanted something a bit out of the ordinary, I might enjoy a visit there when I had grown bored with everything else the Floating World had to offer. He said there’s nothing else like it anywhere in Edo. I would have to have a sponsor to get me in the Hidden House, but he would be delighted to help me out there as he knew it well.”
“Is that what he said?” I laughed harshly. “Well, it’s a good enough way to describe the Hidden House, I suppose. The geisha there were called ‘flawed gems’ in my day. One girl had webbed fingers and toes. Another was an albino with white hair and eyes so light they were almost colorless. But that’s not the point. Normal geisha would never be expected to have sex with their patrons. If any man were crude enough to suggest it, he would have been thrown out of any tea house immediately. But the Hidden House was different. It wasn’t just a brothel. Not even a very high-class one. As your friend said, it was available only to the very rich and the very well connected. A man had to be introduced by an existing patron, and even then, if Auntie didn’t think he was rich and important enough, she would refuse to allow him in.”
“Surely, that must have made things a little better for Kazhua?” Callum looked at me hopefully. “If the geisha were so very sought after, she must have been well taken care of?”
“You think so?” I spoke very softy. “The Floating World is crammed full with courtesans, and every street corner has a brothel. But the Hidden House was like none of those. It was—still is by the sound of it—a very special place. Men went there to taste the delights of the flawed geisha. Oh, why am I bothering to dress it up? They went there to visit the freaks. None of the geisha were normal, and because of that the men could pay to do anything they liked with them. Abuse them. Hurt them. The geisha there told me that Big and his lover Bigger were employed in the Hidden House to keep the patrons in order. But I think that meant they would stop a patron from actually killing a geisha, but almost anything else was permitted. Those poor girls were forced to accept anything their patrons wanted to do to them. Each and every day. And because the patrons viewed them as freaks, what they wanted were things that were too extreme even to be found in the ordinary brothels.”
Callum’s face was white to his lips. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” he said softly.
“Of course you didn’t,” I said. “But that is why I’m going to kill Big if I possibly can. He took my trust. He took my baby. And he allowed her to grow up in that hellish place. When she was still just a child, he knew that she would be forced to welcome strange men into her body every day. Men who would use her and abuse her and walk away laughing, boasting to their friends what the Geisha with the Green Eyes had allowed them to do to her. I wonder even more now if she ever got my letter. If she ever knew how much I loved her.” My voice cracked and I almost shouted at Callum when I went on. “If I had known, I would never have left her! I would have stayed and taken the consequences. Even if both of us had been executed, it would have been a merciful end. Better than facing such degradation every day of her poor life.”
My tears came then, and I could not hold them back. I collapsed into Callum’s arms and he held me tightly, stroking my hair and whispering soothing nonsense to me. When I had no tears left, he spoke my name over and over again until I listened to him.
“You didn’t know,” he said firmly. “You trusted Big. You had no option. And it wouldn’t have been better if you had both died. That’s nonsense. You both survived, and now you have the chance to find each other. And never forget, she must have grown into an exceptional young woman. She had the courage to defy Akira, and the determination to take what she wanted out of life. She wouldn’t have run away with Danjuro if that wasn’t the way of it. And everybody says she was the most beautiful geisha in Edo. And above all, she is still alive, Tara. We are going to find her eventually, and then you will get the chance to wipe away all these years and get to know your daughter.”
“If she wants to know me,” I retorted. “Even if Big did give her my letter, she must think I’ve forgotten about her after all this time. And if she didn’t get my letter, then I don’t suppose anybody else will ever have said a word about me. Nobody would have dared even mention my name. She’ll have forgotten she ever had a mother by now, if she ever cared in the first place.”
“I doubt it.” Callum smiled gently. “I think she is far too much like you to do that. She survived the Hidden House. She refused to give way to Akira. And she took what she wanted, no matter how dangerous it was. If all of that isn’t proof that she is your daughter, I don’t know what else you need. If it had been you who had been left behind, would you ever have stopped wondering about your mother?”
I shook my head reluctantly. “No. I would have always wanted to know about her.” A small smile stretched my lips. “And Kazhua would always have known that she was very special. At the very least, she must have realized that her father was a gaijin. There were so few of them in Edo at the time, she must have known that he was a very important man to have been allowed into the Hidden House. Even leaving aside the amount of money she must have earned, I can understand why Auntie kept my poor Kazhua imprisoned in the Hidden House. She would have done it to punish Kazhua for being my daughter. And at the same time, she would have gloated over the fact that if I had known, I would have been devastated. Did I tell you that Simon was Auntie’s lover, before he met me?”
Callum looked so shocked, I almost laughed.
“No. I don’t believe you mentioned it,” he said faintly. “Do you think keeping Kazhua in the Hidden House was her way of getting revenge on all of you? On you and Kazhua and Simon as well?”
“Oh, yes. She probably made Big hand Kazhua over to her straight away.” I shuddered. “I hope Simon never found out. It would have been very terrible for him to go to his death with that on his conscience.”
“We’ll never know for sure. But he didn’t mention it in his diary or you would have known. So I think the answer must be that he didn’t know.”
I nodded sadly, wishing that I, also, didn’t know.